Preserving the wilderness from Tweedsmuir Park to the Fraser River in BC.
by Ric Careless and Sheena Careless
Two hundred kilometres north of Vancouver, the Chilcotin Ark is a 565 kilometre swath of world-class wilderness that stretches fromTweedsmuir Park to the Fraser River. 2.5 million hectares in size – larger than all the National Parks in the Canadian Rockies combined – it encompasses the greatest expanse of wilderness remaining in southern British Columbia.
The Chilcotin Ark is a region of superlative variety. Progressing eastward from Tweedsmuir (BC’s largest park), the Ark traverses a procession of dramatic landscapes. The highest peaks in the Coast Mountains define its western and southern boundaries. From the Chilcotin Plateau in south-central BC, the Homathko and Klinaklini Rivers cut right through this great range. They flow around the very base of 4000 metre high Mt. Waddington to reach tidewater at Bute and Knight Inlets. By linking the coastal rainforests to the dry interior grasslands, these trans-montane river valleys provide rare low elevation corridors through the Coast Mountains.
Inland of these soaring peaks, the Chilcotin Range is gentler in terrain. It features alpine that offers delightful hiking and horseback riding amid profuse flower meadows in the Alplands, Niut, Potato, and Spruce Lake areas.
On the far side of all these mountains, the Chilcotin Plateau extends in a flat, forested expanse. It was built up from lava flows that emanated from now extinct shield volcanoes in the northwestern Ark: the Rainbow, Itchas, and Ilgachuz Ranges. Also in the western Ark, at the head of the Klinaklini and Atnarko Rivers, the Alplands features the highest concentration of alpine lakes in North America, each one distinctive and vividly hued. Nearby, spectacular Hunlen Falls (the second highest falls in Canada) plunges 400 metres right off the plateau into the Atnarko Trench far below.
In the central Ark, the long turquoise waters of Tatlayoko, Chilko, and Taseko are reminiscent of lakes in south island New Zealand or Switzerland, only so much wilder. The lowaltitude dry forests around Tatlayoko and Chilko fall within the Interior Douglas fir zone (IDF). Throughout most of its range in southern BC, the IDF has been very heavily logged. This makes the large old growth Douglas firs remaining here especially precious.
South of Williams Lake, the Fraser River carves an 800 metre (3,000 feet) deep canyon through the lava layers of the plateau. It renders a landscape that looks more like Utah than British Columbia, with its benchlands and gorges. The hot, dry bunchgrass vegetation of the canyon depths is really a semi-desert environment and is the most northerly extension of montane grasslands in North America. Here, ponderosa pine and Douglas fir savannah support what are likely the highest numbers of California Bighorn in the world, as well as exceptional mule deer populations.
The Chilcotin Ark’s climate is especially varied since it is influenced by the Maritime Polar, Marine Tropical, and Continental Arctic climate regimes. Typically the weather approaches from the northwest, rises over the Coast Range where lots of moisture falls on the windward slopes. The eastern side of the mountains are in a rainshadow, resulting in much drier, sunnier weather.
Given its great size and altitudinal range (from sea level to over 4,000 metres), as well as its range of climates (from wet to dry ), the Chilcotin Ark is a global temperate hotspot of ecosystem diversity. Thirteen of British Columbia’s 16 major ecosystem types, (called biogeoclimatic zones) occur in the Ark, including one found nowhere else in the world: the Sub Boreal Pine Spruce forest. From the ancient rainforests of the central coast, across the high peaks of the Coast Range, to the dry forests, grasslands and semidesert of the Interior Plateau, this vast wilderness sanctuary is home to a remarkable range of biodiversity.
A Refuge for Wildlife
Like its biblical namesake, the Chilcotin Ark truly serves as a refuge for life. It supports some of southern British Columbia’s healthiest and most significant wildlife populations. This abundance is due to its range of habitats. The icon of wilderness, the Ark is home to perhaps the strongest grizzly populations in southern Canada. Come fall these bears congregate to fish for salmon in the Chilko, Taseko, and Atnarko rivers. Recent DNA studies in the Tatlayoko region indicate this area is also a focal place for grizzlies, especially in springtime.
The Chilcotin Ark features some of the highest diversity of major predators in North America. Healthy populations of wolves are found throughout, preying on moose and deer. They are especially numerous on the Chilcotin Plateau. Cougar numbers are also very strong here, being focused on areas with relatively little snowfall where deer populations are higher, such as the Fraser corridor and in the upper Tatlayoko/West Branch valleys. As well, the largest of the weasel family, wolverines, a blue-listed species, thrive throughout the Ark as do fishers, the rarest of the weasels.
Prey species also flourish here. The largest, healthiest herds of woodland caribou remaining in southern Canada live in the northwestern Ark in the alpine/sub-alpine and high forests of the Itcha Ilgachuz Mountains (1,800 animals), and North Tweedsmuir/ Entiako (500 animals) and the Alplands (200 animals).
Moose occur in the lower-mid elevation wetland meadow complexes, especially in the Big Creek area and out on the Chilcotin Plateau. The Klinaklini valley is notable as being the only location in southern BC where this animal migrates to the Pacific Coast. As well as moose, all of BC’s species of deer (mule, black tail, and recently whitetail) thrive here.
The heartland of the California bighorn habitat occurs in the eastern Ark in the Fraser Canyon. They winter on the benches above the river. Come summer, many of these animals migrate to the high meadows in the South Chilcotin Mountains. Mountain goats are found throughout the Ark on steep higher altitude sites where there is suitable forage with sufficient winter range.
This great wilderness is also home to a full complement of raptors: golden and bald eagles, hawks, falcons; and a wealth of waterfowl. This is the place where trumpeter swans were saved from extinction in the 1930s and 40s. Today it is one of the few places where rare white pelicans nest in BC.
All of British Columbia’s salmon species occur within the Ark, in the Fraser River and its tributaries: the Chilcotin, Chilko, and Taseko; as well as the Atnarko River (a tributary of the Bella Coola River in Tweedsmuir Park). The Chilko River is especially important, as each year 4,000,000 sockeye return to spawn – the third largest run on the Fraser. These are an exceptionally hardy race of fish that scientists refer to as ‘super salmon.’
Tsilhqot’in Territory
Salmon was a crucial food source for the first residents of the Chilcotin, the Tsilhqot’in. For them the Ark was their traditional territory; and it remains their homeland today with trap lines, grease trails, fishing spots, hunting grounds, places of great power, burial sites, and old villages all commanding respect.
In 1793 a young Alexander Mackenzie explored the Chilcotin by way of the Blackwater River. He was enroute to becoming the first person to travel overland across North America and reach the Pacific Ocean (at Bella Coola). However, contact with Europeans was traumatic for the Tsilhqot’in, as the newcomers brought the threat of smallpox (which had devastated native populations across North America). So when in the 1860s, British promoter Alfred Waddington started building a road up the tortuous Homathko River into Chilcotin and onto the Cariboo gold fields, the Tsilhqot’in feared that disease would follow. This triggered a conflict dubbed “the Chilcotin War,” which ultimately resulted in the road not being built.
In the early 1990s when large scale clear-cut logging threatened the wildness of the Brittany Triangle north of Chilko Lake, the Xeni Gwet’in, the Tsilhqot’in people living in the Nemiah Valley, threatened opposition. They invoked the “Nemiah Declaration,” demanding that their homeland – around Taseko, Chilko, and Tatlayoko Lakes as well as the adjacent Brittany Triangle – remain wild. Once more they prevailed. The logging plans were cancelled and the sawmill was closed down at Eagle Lake near the Brittany Triangle.
This new found influence was again demonstrated in 2010 when a mining company proposed to build a copper/gold mine on the edge of the Ark near Taseko Lake. The plan entailed filling Fish Lake with mining waste rock and tailings. The Xeni Gwet’in and many other Tsilhqot’in people fiercely opposed such desecration. Ultimately the Canadian government denied the proposal.
Over the years, a small number of Europeans made their way into the Chilcotin Ark to settle and ranch. By the 1930s they were running their cattle up into the alpine for the summer, and over-wintering them on the plateau meadows. The minus 50 degree January nights were harsh but these newcomers were tough. Putting down roots, building homesteads, range cabins, and endless miles of drift-fence, the Chilcotin cowboys established themselves as fixtures in the area. They were legendary in their ability to endure with bravery, strength, and perseverance.
In the early 1980s, the invention of mechanized harvesters meant that the small but uniform trees on the rolling Chilcotin Plateau could now be logged economically. Suddenly the region became subject to extensive clear-cutting: one person operating a snipper could mow down six hectares of forest in an eight-hour shift. The new large flow of low cost wood triggered the rapid expansion of sawmill capacity in nearby Williams Lake. Soon, huge clear-cuts and a rapidly growing road network spread like cancer across the region. Given the dry cold climate of the high western Chilcotin Plateau, the re-growth of even small trees here takes a very long time: 150 years on average for a spruce to grow to just six inches in diameter. Therefore, much of this logging was not easily sustained but in truth was really “timber mining.”
Conservation Vision
The conservation history of the Chilcotin Ark began in 1938 with the preservation of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. This was (and remains) BC’s largest park (506,000 ha). It was named for the 15th Governor General of Canada, John Buchan Tweedsmuir, who championed its protection. About this time, the BC Naturalists proposed a large park that would stretch from Chilko Lake to the South Chilcotin; it was named the Charlie Cunningham Wilderness after a legendary mountain man who loved this country deeply. This concept was proposed recurrently for decades, but was never acted on by government.
In the late-1980s, emerging concerns over logging led Chilcotin residents and conservationists across BC to renew efforts to press for protection of the region’s wild country. Several parks were proposed by various conservation organizations for: the Fraser Canyon/Churn Creek area; the South Chilcotin Mountains; Chilko Lake; the Niut Mountains; and the Alplands. In 1991, BC Spaces for Nature (then called Tatshenshini Wild) integrated the various proposals together into a much larger conservation vision, and coined the name “Chilcotin Ark” to describe it. The intent of this large new Chilcotin Ark campaign was to preserve the exceptional expanse of wilderness from Tweedsmuir Park to the Fraser River: an overall region of three million hectares (7.5 million acres).
In 1992 the Harcourt Government established the Commission on Resources and Environment (CORE) to undertake land-use plans on Vancouver Island, the Kootenays, and the Cariboo-Chilcotin. Eventually after several years of difficult negotiations the Cariboo-Chilcotin Land Use Plan was agreed to in 1994. This resulted in many large parks being created in the Ark including: Junction Sheep Range, Churn Creek, Marble Mountain, Edge Hills, Ts’yl-os, Big Creek, Homathko/ Tatlayoko, and Itchas-Ilgachuz. However, several portions of the Chilcotin Ark lay beyond the boundaries of the original Cariboo-Chilcotin CORE Land Use Plan. As such, negotiations in several other Land and Resource Management Plans (Lakes, Vanderhoof, Central Coast, Lillooet, Seato- Sky) were required to attain park status for areas including Entiako, Klinaklini, and Spruce Lake. Achieving such extensive preservation of the highest value wilderness in the Ark did not come easily. Patience was essential. In all, BC Spaces’ involvement in these many plans stretched over fifteen years.
Supplementing the parks that were protected through these land use plans, other negotiations led to the establishment of no-logging zones in the Tatlayoko-West Branch area in the central Ark and Anahim/Alplands region on the southeastern edge of Tweedsmuir Park. Based on the principles of conservation biology, the nolog zones were strategically located to buffer and connect the existing parks as well as the most vulnerable (i.e. nonpark) remaining stands of old growth forest, key wildlife winter range, and scenic zones for wilderness tourism.
A Wild Heartland
The Chilcotin Ark is a wild heartland where nature thrives. An enduring legacy of Creation, today as development eradicates our planet’s fast remaining wilderness areas, the scale and calibre of the Chilcotin Ark renders it a very rare treasure. Indeed this significance is likely to become ever greater when considered in the context of the threat of global warming. Now, as once was the case for Noah, our earth faces an era of potentially catastrophic climate change. This poses a threat to the survival of life as we know it. Science tells us that 30% or more of all species could face extinction within the next century. Therefore, the role of this globally significant sanctuary in BC’s Chilcotin is to act as an “Ark of Parks,” providing safe refuge through a time of climatic upheaval by offering species in this part of North America the best chance of surviving into the future.
Beyond enhancing prospects for species survival in this time of changing climate, the importance of the Chilcotin Ark to science will surely grow. Its vast wildness and eco-diversity will enable the Ark to serve as an exemplary benchmark, a living laboratory from which to research and monitor the impact of global warming. The knowledge gained in the Chilcotin may indeed contribute to the survival of temperate zone animals, plants, and the life systems they comprise, even as the planet warms. Given its global significance, lessons learned here can help British Columbia – and other temperate zone jurisdictions – develop Nature Climate Strategies to help address the climate crisis we find ourselves in.
Serendipity and geography led to the Ark being endowed with beauty, a wealth of ecosystems and world-class wilderness. But it has been the hard work by so many conservationists that has resulted in the huge natural expanse protected. In contrast to the many high profile efforts that have typified preservation elsewhere in BC, protecting the Chilcotin Ark has been a stealth wilderness campaign. For 20 years, a low profile, relentless undertaking led by BC Spaces for Nature – notably Ric Careless, Dave Neads and Dona Reel – in close association with a dedicated grouping of conservationists has led to the protection of the largest wilderness left in southern British Columbia. As such, the Chilcotin Ark is BC’s best kept environmental secret. This grand legacy of the original earth has now been preserved for all those creatures and species that live here … and for all the generations of British Columbians to come.
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Text and photos © Ric Careless
For 40 years Ric Careless has led campaigns that have protected millions of hectares of BC wilderness including: Tatshenshini, Spatsizi, Central Purcells, Height of the Rockies, Nitinat Triangle and the Chilcotin Ark. He has received numerous awards including the Order of British Columbia. A co-founder of the Sierra Club of BC, he is the Executive Director of BC Spaces for Nature. Sheena Careless, Ric’s daughter, has grown up close to wilderness – especially in the Chilcotin and is a nature and sustainability educator.